This appeal acted powerfully on Sir Charles, and he left off suddenly with flushed cheeks and tried to compose himself.
But his words had now raised a corresponding fury on the other side of that boundary wall. Richard Bassett, stung with rage, and, unlike his high-bred cousin, accustomed to mix cunning even with his fury, gave him a terrible blow—a very coup de Jarnac. He spoke at him; he ran forward to the nurse, and said very loud: “Let me see the little darling. He does you credit. What fat cheeks!—what arms!—an infant hercules! There, take him up the mound. Now lift him in your arms, and let him see his inheritance. Higher, nurse, higher. Ay, crow away, youngster; all that is yours—house and land and all. They may steal the trees; they can't make away with the broad acres. Ha! I believe he understands every word, nurse. See how he smiles and crows.”
At the sound of Bassett's voice Sir Charles started, and, at the first taunt, he uttered something between a moan and a roar, as of a wounded lion.
“Come away,” cried Lady Bassett. “He is doing it on purpose.”
But the stabs came too fast. Sir Charles shook her off, and looked wildly round for a weapon to strike his insulter with.
“Curse him and his brat!” he cried. “They shall neither of them—I'll kill them both.”
He sprang fiercely at the wall, and, notwithstanding his weakly condition, raised himself above it, and glared over with a face so full of fury that Richard Bassett recoiled in dismay for a moment, and said, “Run! run! He'll hurt the child!”
But, the next moment, Sir Charles's hands lost their power; he uttered a miserable moan, and fell gasping under the wall in an epileptic fit, with all the terrible symptoms I have described in a previous portion of this story. These were new to his poor wife, and, as she strove in vain to control his fearful convulsions, her shrieks rent the air. Indeed, her screams were so appalling that Bassett himself sprang at the wall, and, by a great effort of strength, drew himself up, and peered down, with white face, at the glaring eyes, clinched teeth, purple face, and foaming lips of his enemy, and his body that bounded convulsively on the ground with incredible violence.
At that moment humanity prevailed over every thing, and he flung himself over the wall, and in his haste got rather a heavy fall himself. “It is a fit!” he cried, and running to the brook close by, filled his hat with water, and was about to dash it over Sir Charles's face.
But Lady Bassett repelled him with horror. “Don't touch him, you villain! You have killed him.” And then she shrieked again.